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I waited for the Lord. He inclined unto me; He heard my complaint. O blessed are they that hope and trust in the Lord. O blessed are they that hope and trust in Him.

In 1840 the thirty-one-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was in Leipzig, the hub of the German book trade, where preparations were under way to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg. His contributions to the festivities were the Lobgesang, or Hymn of Praise (in reality his second symphony) and the Festgesang for double male-voice choir. Like Beethoven’s ninth symphony, the Hymn of Praise consists of three orchestral movements and a choral finale, though the latter takes up a much larger proportion of the work than Beethoven’s corresponding movement and the inspiration is on a lower level. It pleased the King of Saxony, who had it repeated at a later date as a command performance, and Schumann likened the duet I waited for the Lord to ‘a glimpse of heaven filled with Raphael Madonnas’. Other critics have treated the work, as a whole, less generously.

I waited for the Lord, he inclined unto me, he heard my complaint. O bless’d are they that hope and trust in the Lord.

after Psalm 40: 1, 5

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) wrote a substantial number of Psalm settings and sacred cantatas. He was born into a Jewish family, but his father, Abraham, took his brother’s advice and had his children baptized in 1816. One reason for this lies in the quest for social equality which the Jewish people of Germany sought after the French Revolution. Mendelssohn’s grandfather Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) was ‘the philosopher of the Enlightenment’ and his views helped formulate Felix’s own. The civil rights which went with that revolution were slow in coming to members of the Jewish community. A quick way to enjoy the fruits of the developing social structure, therefore, was simply to convert to Christianity. It was at this stage in his life that Felix added ‘Bartholdy’ to his surname. In his case the conversion was highly significant and a large number of religious works flowed from his pen.

The anthem recorded here forms part of the composer’s Symphony No 2, Op 52. This symphony-cantata is known as Lobgesang or the ‘Hymn of Praise’. Mendelssohn almost certainly attempted to emulate the effect of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. It is the choral section of Mendelsohn’s work which has kept it in the repertoire. The sixth principal section is the delightful duet ‘I waited for the Lord’. The work was commissioned by the town council of Leipzig and first performed on 24 June 1840. That year was the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing, and Leipzig was the centre of the German book trade. Mendelssohn was one of the most well known ‘Leipzigers’ and hence the commission was made. The first performance was in the open air to mark the unveiling of a statue to Johann Gutenburg who was considered the inventor of movable type.